Sir Ken Robinson, the educational reformer whose talks are on the top of the TED most popular video list, has just come out with another wonderful presentation entitled "How to Escape Education's Death Valley." In it, he explains why current educational "reforms," such as No Child Left Behind, run counter to fundamental human nature and thus are doomed to fail. He contrasts the current American system, which is increasingly narrow, centralized, and standardized, with systems that rank at the top of international achievement, such as Finland, which are broad in scope, controlled by local educators, and individualized to particular students. He is pithy and persuasive, and delivers his talk with his typical dry humor. (My favorite humorous line from this talk was when, in discussing the growing diagnosis of American students with ADHD, he said "Children are not, for the most point, suffering from a psychological condition...they are suffering from childhood.")
Watch the video below to learn more about why our current educational policy ends up with the US spending immense sums of money but achieving unacceptable results in terms of drop-outs and other human factors:
Showing posts with label STEM education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label STEM education. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Is The Hunger Games Turning Students Off of STEM Education?
Are students turning away from pursuing careers in science and math because of books like The Hunger Games? Popular author Neal Stephenson thinks so. Stephenson argues that current science fiction writers depict such a dark and depressing picture of the future--like children being forced to fight to the death for the amusement of the ruling elite and for the subjugation of the laboring masses--that students are not inspired to be part of making that future come to be. If science, engineering, and math is going to create a future society like Panen in The Hunger Games, or the Realm in Incarceron, or post-apocalyptic Chicago in Divergent (gosh, haven't I written up that review? I'll have to do that), or dozens of other popular YA books, movies, and TV shows, why would students want to participate in that?
To Stephenson's mind, it all contributes to our society overarching problem, which is an inability to, in his word, "get big things done." So he has created an effort entitled the Hierarchy Project to convince science fiction writers to create some more optomistic visions of the future that would inspire students back into the world of science and math as a potential solution provider rather than a conveyor belt to our dystopic future. To hear more about his views on this topic, read his article on Innovation Starvation.
Stephenson is not the first person to raise these concerns. Indeed, my first-ever blog post, Are Bella and Edward LITERALLY Warping Your Adolescent's Brain, was about a conference at Cambridge that was examining whether dark themes in current YA literature were physically changing adolescent brains. But I thought it was a good follow-on to my earlier post this week about Neil deGrasse Tyson's concern that we have forgotten how to dream. I do think that perhaps the biggest problem is STEM education is our students lack of desire to pursue it, and I do think that these dark, science-enabled dystopias could be a part of the problem.
It also brings to mind a story about Martin Luther King, Jr. that I described in another earlier post. Nichelle Nicols, who played the African American communications officer Uhuru in the original television series of Star Trek, told of Dr. King telling her that Star Trek was the most important TV show at that time because it gave people a vision of the future world he was trying to create in his speeches--a place where people of all races (and even different planets) worked together in peace and respect to take on big challenges.
That was the time I was raised in. Star Trek may seem to today's eyes to be cheesy and bombastic, but it was unfailing optomistic about human potential enhanced by technology. Our children are growing up in times where it seems to be preferable to be vampires and werewolfs and zombies and such to becoming a scientist (unless you want to go into murder investigation, since I guess the numerous CSI shows require quite a number of scientist to analyze all that crime evidence the detective amass).
So I hope Stephenson and his Hierarchy Project help to encourage some writers to give our adolescent some less grim scenarios of their future. It may not be the biggest part of the solution to STEM education, but it sure couldn't hurt.
To Stephenson's mind, it all contributes to our society overarching problem, which is an inability to, in his word, "get big things done." So he has created an effort entitled the Hierarchy Project to convince science fiction writers to create some more optomistic visions of the future that would inspire students back into the world of science and math as a potential solution provider rather than a conveyor belt to our dystopic future. To hear more about his views on this topic, read his article on Innovation Starvation.
Stephenson is not the first person to raise these concerns. Indeed, my first-ever blog post, Are Bella and Edward LITERALLY Warping Your Adolescent's Brain, was about a conference at Cambridge that was examining whether dark themes in current YA literature were physically changing adolescent brains. But I thought it was a good follow-on to my earlier post this week about Neil deGrasse Tyson's concern that we have forgotten how to dream. I do think that perhaps the biggest problem is STEM education is our students lack of desire to pursue it, and I do think that these dark, science-enabled dystopias could be a part of the problem.
It also brings to mind a story about Martin Luther King, Jr. that I described in another earlier post. Nichelle Nicols, who played the African American communications officer Uhuru in the original television series of Star Trek, told of Dr. King telling her that Star Trek was the most important TV show at that time because it gave people a vision of the future world he was trying to create in his speeches--a place where people of all races (and even different planets) worked together in peace and respect to take on big challenges.
That was the time I was raised in. Star Trek may seem to today's eyes to be cheesy and bombastic, but it was unfailing optomistic about human potential enhanced by technology. Our children are growing up in times where it seems to be preferable to be vampires and werewolfs and zombies and such to becoming a scientist (unless you want to go into murder investigation, since I guess the numerous CSI shows require quite a number of scientist to analyze all that crime evidence the detective amass).
So I hope Stephenson and his Hierarchy Project help to encourage some writers to give our adolescent some less grim scenarios of their future. It may not be the biggest part of the solution to STEM education, but it sure couldn't hurt.
Monday, March 19, 2012
The Power of Dreams in Education
Why aren't US students going into careers in science, engineering, and math? That is a question we've been asking as a society ever since I was working professionally in Washington DC in education policy in the 1980s. There have been many proposed answers to that question, but mostly the blame as been laid on our education system. Our science and math education isn't rigorous enough, or it isn't concrete enough, or it isn't relevent enough, or it isn't hands-on enough, etc. etc. etc. So our latest response has been lots of government and private programs to improve education in what is now called STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics).
While I know science and math are tough disciplines--tough to learn and tough to teach (she says, having just completed teaching a hands-on physics class on light and optics that required lugging multiple sets of things for hands-on experiments to an outside classroom for five weeks)--and that we could definitely improve our science and math education, to my mind, that isn't the biggest problem with our current "brain drain" in STEM careers. The data I read indicates that most of "the best and the brightest"are choosing to go into fields other than math and science. That is to say, even if we could wave our magic wands and make our STEM education programs perfect, that isn't going to change the situation if students refuse to go into those programs in the first place.
There are many aspects to why American students aren't studying STEM. But one of the big ones, according to astrophysicist and science writer/media specialist Neil deGrasse Tyson, is that we, as a nation, have stopped dreaming about a better future and the important role science, math, and engineering have in getting us there.
I could say more, but Tyson himself says it so much better in the short video below, entitled "Why We Stopped Dreaming:"
There is no way I can improve on that. Except that I would say that it is not just limited to STEM. I grew up in the Washington DC area, where almost everyone there was employed in what we used to consider "public service." When I was growing up, working in Congress or the White House, the multiple court systems, the many federal agencies, the military complex built around the Pentagon, the related research institutes, the multiple non-profit public interest groups on all sorts of issues--all of those were honorable professions, and even though people found it a financial sacrifice, in terms of making a lower income than they might have had in private industry, it was worth it because they believed they were making a difference or playing a role in making the world safer, smarter, healthier, and better.
Now, after decades of people bashing "the government," our best and brightest don't want to work there either. Looking at the nastiness and frustration among our top politicians--the US Congress and White House--it is no wonder that our students don't want a career in politics. Education is another field where most of the public policy discussion is very negative, constantly highlighting all the perceived failures and rarely lauding the good work done day after day by millions of teachers across our country.
So what is left? Becoming an athlete, rock or rap star, an actor/actress or, even better/easier, becoming a celebrity through so-called "reality" TV?
This is a tough, tough problem, and I don't know how we are going to solve it as a society. But I know one thing. As teachers and as parents, we need to support our students in dreaming again. And I think it is particularly important in this middle school age--when they are old enough to understand and deal with some of the real substantive problems of our culture, but haven't yet experience so much frustration and inability to make a difference that they become cynical and indifferent. In our case, it is why we are so heavily invested in a effort called Healing Oceans Together, where the students wrote the following mission statement for their group:
While I know science and math are tough disciplines--tough to learn and tough to teach (she says, having just completed teaching a hands-on physics class on light and optics that required lugging multiple sets of things for hands-on experiments to an outside classroom for five weeks)--and that we could definitely improve our science and math education, to my mind, that isn't the biggest problem with our current "brain drain" in STEM careers. The data I read indicates that most of "the best and the brightest"are choosing to go into fields other than math and science. That is to say, even if we could wave our magic wands and make our STEM education programs perfect, that isn't going to change the situation if students refuse to go into those programs in the first place.
There are many aspects to why American students aren't studying STEM. But one of the big ones, according to astrophysicist and science writer/media specialist Neil deGrasse Tyson, is that we, as a nation, have stopped dreaming about a better future and the important role science, math, and engineering have in getting us there.
I could say more, but Tyson himself says it so much better in the short video below, entitled "Why We Stopped Dreaming:"
There is no way I can improve on that. Except that I would say that it is not just limited to STEM. I grew up in the Washington DC area, where almost everyone there was employed in what we used to consider "public service." When I was growing up, working in Congress or the White House, the multiple court systems, the many federal agencies, the military complex built around the Pentagon, the related research institutes, the multiple non-profit public interest groups on all sorts of issues--all of those were honorable professions, and even though people found it a financial sacrifice, in terms of making a lower income than they might have had in private industry, it was worth it because they believed they were making a difference or playing a role in making the world safer, smarter, healthier, and better.
Now, after decades of people bashing "the government," our best and brightest don't want to work there either. Looking at the nastiness and frustration among our top politicians--the US Congress and White House--it is no wonder that our students don't want a career in politics. Education is another field where most of the public policy discussion is very negative, constantly highlighting all the perceived failures and rarely lauding the good work done day after day by millions of teachers across our country.
So what is left? Becoming an athlete, rock or rap star, an actor/actress or, even better/easier, becoming a celebrity through so-called "reality" TV?
This is a tough, tough problem, and I don't know how we are going to solve it as a society. But I know one thing. As teachers and as parents, we need to support our students in dreaming again. And I think it is particularly important in this middle school age--when they are old enough to understand and deal with some of the real substantive problems of our culture, but haven't yet experience so much frustration and inability to make a difference that they become cynical and indifferent. In our case, it is why we are so heavily invested in a effort called Healing Oceans Together, where the students wrote the following mission statement for their group:
Healing Oceans Together (H2O) is a non-profit organization dedicated to preservation of the seas, raising public awareness about the oceans, and supporting the community through environmental education. Our organization is largely student-driven and is exceedingly resourceful. We are homeschoolers saving the world one step at a time, because we believe that everybody, working together, can make a difference.I have to end with quoting (yet AGAIN, for those who know me) from one of my favorite books of 2011, Okay For Now by Gary Schmidt. In this passage from the book, which is set in the 1960s, the junior high science teacher, Mr. Ferris, is talking to a group of incoming students.
"Within a year, possibly by next fall," he was saying, "something that has never before been done, will be done. NASA will be sending men to the moon. Think of that. Men who were once in classrooms like this one will leave their footprints on the lunar surface." He paused. I leaned in close against the wall so I could hear him. "That is why you are sitting here tonight, and why you will be coming here in the months ahead. You come to dream dream. You come to build fantastic castles into the air. And you come to learn how to build the foundations that make those castles real. When the men who will command that mission were boys your age, no one knew that they would walk on another world someday. No one knew. But in a few months, that's what will happen. So, twenty years from now, what will people say of you? 'No one knew then that this kid from Washington Irving Junior High School would grow up to do".....what? What castle will you build?"With all our focus in education on test scores and STEM initiatives and funding priorities, we are forgetting to encourage our students to dream big dreams. And what kind of a life are preparing them for without dreams? As Langston Hughes said in his poem, Dreams:
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Engineering Contest: PBS Asks Students to Build Big
Design Squad Nation, an educational TV show produced by PBS to support middle school STEM education, particularly engineering, is asking American students to "Build Big." In the DSN Build Big contest, students are encouraged to create teams, take one of the engineering projects features on the Design Squad Nation website, build a giant version of it, and submit a YouTube video on that creation. The winning project, which must be submitted by August 1, 2011, will win a Flip Camera and will be featured on the DSN website. Full contest details can be found here.
For an example of the kind of project they have in mind, watch the following video:
Even if you don't win, it looks like a fun challenge--to build a supersized engineering project and make an effective YouTube video about it (maximum length of 5 minutes).
If you end up entering, let us know in the comments so we can support your entry by viewing it and adding favorable comments in YouTube.
For an example of the kind of project they have in mind, watch the following video:
Even if you don't win, it looks like a fun challenge--to build a supersized engineering project and make an effective YouTube video about it (maximum length of 5 minutes).
If you end up entering, let us know in the comments so we can support your entry by viewing it and adding favorable comments in YouTube.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Video Game Development Contest for Middle Schoolers Announced
For all those middle school students out there who want to design video games....
The White House has recently announced a video game development competition as part of its Educate to Innovate campaign to improve student achievement in STEM disciplines (that is, Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathmatics education). In the Youth Division part of the competition, U.S. middle school students--those enrolled in grades 5-8 or for homeschoolers, students aged 9-13--are invited to submit their best game designs dealing with STEM topics. There are three ways students can submit their ideas: (1) a written game design document; (2) a playable game that uses the design features in the free version of Scratch, Gamestar Mechanic, or Gamemaker 8; (3) a playable game than runs for free on any open platform (for example, using something like Flash). There are over $50,000 in prizes available for the middle school contest, which is actually split into two sections: submissions from 5th-6th grade, and those from 7th-8th grade. But even if they don't win, or even end up submitting an entry, this is a great place for middle school students who want to design video games to check out, because there are lots of resources available on the competition submission platforms and other options. Those who want to compete have until January 5, 2011 to submit their design documents or playable games.
For more information, see the competition site at http://www.stemchallenge.org/Default.aspx
The White House has recently announced a video game development competition as part of its Educate to Innovate campaign to improve student achievement in STEM disciplines (that is, Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathmatics education). In the Youth Division part of the competition, U.S. middle school students--those enrolled in grades 5-8 or for homeschoolers, students aged 9-13--are invited to submit their best game designs dealing with STEM topics. There are three ways students can submit their ideas: (1) a written game design document; (2) a playable game that uses the design features in the free version of Scratch, Gamestar Mechanic, or Gamemaker 8; (3) a playable game than runs for free on any open platform (for example, using something like Flash). There are over $50,000 in prizes available for the middle school contest, which is actually split into two sections: submissions from 5th-6th grade, and those from 7th-8th grade. But even if they don't win, or even end up submitting an entry, this is a great place for middle school students who want to design video games to check out, because there are lots of resources available on the competition submission platforms and other options. Those who want to compete have until January 5, 2011 to submit their design documents or playable games.
For more information, see the competition site at http://www.stemchallenge.org/Default.aspx
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